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God’s Curriculum: Reimagining Education as a Journey Towards Shalom

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Reimagining Christian Education

Abstract

What is education for? Despite their differences, secular and religious schools alike are often busy with the mechanics of delivering their prescribed curricula. Relatively little attention is given to metaphysics, discerning the end towards which they labour. What, then, might be a sufficiently inclusive and encompassing Christian vision of education for all citizens in our simultaneously secular and religious pluralistic democracy? Christian educational leaders rightly seek an integrated vision of faith and learning. What is arguably lacking, however, is a unifying metaphor of faith and learning which is capable of sparking our imagination and serving our differently believing neighbours studying in our midst. The most comprehensive purpose for humanity as a whole and education therein is arguably shalom. However, this rich term is nebulous unless grounded in the concrete story of scripture. In this chapter, then, I adopt a narrative theological stance to revision and intend our educational efforts as serving the key dimensions of shalom that together comprise humanity’s educational journey of growth under divine tutelage. ‘God’s Curriculum’ helps us reimagine Christian education as a transformative pilgrimage. It is replete with practices, where diverse learners are drawn forward by desire as together they walk towards the promised garden city of peace.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For a devastating critique of Tyler-esque ‘scientific’ linear curriculum development models, and a rationale for a shift towards collaboration and conversation between diverse perspectives, see Pinar et al. (1995, pp. xvi, 6, 186–187, 867–868), Giroux (2005), and Kliebard (2017).

  2. 2.

    ACARA outlines the curriculum development process, but sidesteps foundational curriculum theory. See ACARA (2012b). On the danger of disconnecting curriculum writing from philosophy, see Lovat (1988).

  3. 3.

    All scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version 2011.

  4. 4.

    Following Janet Soskice (1985), metaphor may simply be defined as ‘that figure of speech whereby we speak about one thing in terms which are seen to be suggestive of another’ (p. 15).

  5. 5.

    Jamie Smith is here following a long line of virtue and narrative ethicists, such as MacIntyre (1984) and Smith (2003).

  6. 6.

    Particularly helpful towards this end are Chaps. 711 of Smith and Shortt (2002, pp. 67–134). See also Smith and Felch (2016), where they, too, explore education through ‘Journeys and Pilgrimages’, before unpacking two additional metaphors of ‘Gardens and Wilderness’ and ‘Buildings and Walls’.

  7. 7.

    That Christians with Reformed convictions can adopt this human analogy with theological consistency is well evidenced by Calvin’s (1975) own reflections, in no less a source than his authoritative ‘Institutes of the Christian Religion’, on Biblical metaphor and how God speaks to his simple creatures:

    The Anthropomorphites, also, who imagined a corporal God from the fact that Scripture often ascribes to him a mouth, ears, eyes, hands, and feet, are easily refuted. For who even of slight intelligence does not understand that, as nurses commonly do with infants, God is wont in a measure to ‘lisp’ in speaking to us? Thus, such forms of speaking do not so much express clearly what God is like as accommodate the knowledge of him to our slight capacity. To do this he must descend far beneath his loftiness. (p. 121 [Bk. I, Chap. XIII]).

    This same caveat should be charitably applied to Calvin’s gendered description of God as ‘he’.

  8. 8.

    Again, this tension is well held by Calvin (1975, pp. 41–42, 61–62, 96–97, 121 [Bk. I, Chaps. II. 1–2, V.9, X.1–2, and XIII.1, respectively]). He avers, ‘What is God? Men who pose this question are merely toying with idle speculations. It is more important for us to know of what sort he is and what is consistent with his nature’ [i.e., not what God essentially is, but what God is for us] (p. 41). Thus,

    We ought not to rack our brains about God; but rather, we should contemplate him in his works. […] For the Lord manifests himself by his powers, the force of which we feel within ourselves and the benefits which we enjoy. We must therefore be much more profoundly affected by this knowledge than if we were to imagine a God of whom no perception came through to us. Consequently, we know the most perfect way of seeking God, and the most suitable order, is not for us to attempt with bold curiosity to penetrate to the investigation of his essence, which we ought more to adore than meticulously to search out, but for us to contemplate him in his works whereby he renders himself near and familiar to us, and in some manner communicates himself. (Calvin 1975, pp. 61–62)

    Calvin (1975) later reaffirms this sentiment: In Scripture, God’s ‘powers are mentioned, by which he is shown to us not as he is in himself, but as he is toward us: so that this recognition of him consists more in living experience than in vain and high-flown speculation’ (p. 97).

  9. 9.

    In Ticciati’s (2016) frame, ‘doctrinal reference [must be reconceived] within the context of human transformation’ (p. 123). Drawing on Augustine’s thought, she suggests that ‘the role of doctrine is to ward off general classification in respect of God, making way for redemptive encounter with God’ (p. 123). That is, lightly held metaphors, largely derived from what we believe God has in some sense ‘revealed’, are less a grasping of God’s nature, and more a bridge to relationship and reformation into the image of our Creator (p. 139). See also Augustine (1960) on Psalm 144:6 (as paraphrased by Calvin 1975): ‘[…] disheartened by his greatness, we cannot grasp [God], [therefore] we ought to gaze upon his works, that we may be restored by his goodness.’ (p. 62).

  10. 10.

    Bringing this lengthy defence of divine metaphor to a close, it is helpful to revisit the nature of analogical language. According to Ricoeur (1977), metaphor is ‘the rhetorical process by which discourse unleashes the power that certain fictions have to redescribe reality’ (p. 70). In so doing, this imaginary channels our vocation. On the process of designing metaphors to unleash creativity and direct action, see Erard (2015).

  11. 11.

    For a helpful survey of Aquinas’s theological method exemplified in ‘Summa Theologia’ (1948), see Hector (2007).

  12. 12.

    This brief apologia for a Christian curriculum open to other perspectives is a restatement of assertions first made in my public lecture on finding an ‘Uncommon Good’ with unbelievers (Benson 2016b, pp. 22–24).

  13. 13.

    The catch phrases summarising each leg of the journey—with my addition for Israel and the New Creation—draw from Choung (2008).

  14. 14.

    In Chap. 7 of my dissertation (Benson 2016a, pp. 154–156), I suggest a five-movement pedagogy aligned with the practical theological action–reflection cycle, consisting of encounter, questions, stories, synthesis, and response. In turn, I structure my curricular and pedagogical innovations around the three What If Learning movements of ‘seeing anew, choosing engagement, and reshaping practice’ (What if learning n.d.a).

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Acknowledgements

Thank you to The University of Queensland’s Graduate Student International Travel Award, which afforded me a year in the UK to partner with and interview many scholars concerned with narrative theology and dialogical education. This included the University of Cambridge Inter-Faith Programme, the University of Warwick Religion in Education Research Unit, Canterbury Christ Church University National Institute for Christian Education Research, Tony Blair’s Face to Faith Programme, the Three Faith Forum, St. Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace, and Birmingham’s ‘The Feast’.

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Benson, D.M. (2018). God’s Curriculum: Reimagining Education as a Journey Towards Shalom. In: Luetz, J., Dowden, T., Norsworthy, B. (eds) Reimagining Christian Education. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0851-2_2

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